Sound Advice
Volume 12, Issue 2, 2009

Art and Science at Mach 1

When Chuck Yeager climbed up into the cockpit of the experimental Bell X-1 on October 14, 1947, he was about to make history. Pushing his plane hard at 45,000 feet, Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier, a speed we know as Mach 1. In 1953 another test pilot named Scott Crossfield coaxed his plane to an astonishing Mach 2--twice the speed of sound. Yeager--not one to rest on his laurels--responded by pushing the envelope once again, achieving a speed in excess of Mach 2.4.

These daring aviators heralded a new era of flight, which culminated twenty-three years later in the first commercial supersonic flight of British Airways' Concorde from London Heathrow to Bahrain. Supersonic flight across the Atlantic was soon taken for granted and our military aircraft designers rose enthusiastically to the challenge of faster-than-sound combat.

Today, Yeager's personal contribution to the history of flight is echoed by the pilots of the wildly innovative B-2 Stealth bomber, the F22 Raptor and the F35 Lightning II. These aircraft are enormously aesthetically pleasing, but did you know they become even more breathtaking once they've broken the sound barrier?  Recent photographs have captured images of moisture clouds formed by the intense pressure of the sound waves created by aircraft flying faster than the speed of sound.  Take a look!  Whoever would have thought a sound phenomenon could be so artistic?

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